Hysterical Headlines (Funny or Absurd) for March 2nd
Bottom Line: These are the daily doses of nonsense in the media and my hot takes on them...
This Is a White House in Crisis Chris Cillizza, CNN
Hot Take: And this is CNN. What planet do these people live on? Here's an excerpt: This is a White House in crisis. Hicks' departure adds to that sense that the sky is falling around and on Trump. There's no spin to put out that. You can't polish a turd. And when you try to, it tends to get all over the place.
Without question there's been a fair amount of turnover within the administration but then again, we've never experienced a media establishment and entire political party more focused on attempting to undermine an incoming President either. After a year plus of false reporting of Trump-Russia collusion which has born no fruit, not covering the grand conspiracy under the former administration, which is even more credible after the Schiff memo which did nothing to disprove a minimum of 26 statements in the Nunes memo - they're now calling this a White House in crisis. Never mind that the President has had more federal judges confirmed at this point in his presidency than any predecessor (and a Supreme Court Justice). Never mind that comprehensive tax reform passed and killed the individual mandate. Never mind that we have the best economy in thirteen years, the highest wage growth (pacing 4.8% in 2018 through February) in 32 years, the lowest unemployment claims in 48 years - no this is a real crisis.
Manufactured as your crisis might be - it might be enough to hit seemingly good people like Hope Hicks hard enough that they bow out - but it's pretty implausible to suggest that the most effective 1st year President since WWII, is in crisis. That corrupt state of your reporting on the other hand...
NFL splits with Papa John's, makes Pizza Hut new sponsor - Sun Sentinel
Hot Take: It's stunning just how far those in media with agendas will go to perpetuate biased characterizations. Better still this was in the "Business" section. Heads up - if you're relying on news like this story suggests you're screwed. Why? Let's take this in two quick pieces.
First: NFL splits with Papa John's... If this alone were the headline it'd be accurate. In the context of the rest of the headline it has the connotation that the NFL dumped Papa John's because...
Second: makes Pizza Hut new sponsor... Umm business reporting specialists... Heads up. Here's the way it works. The NFL doesn't go around trying to find their favorite company to "make" sponsors out of... There are category exclusive opportunities and whatever company in good standing that pays the most gets it. That's how this works but I guess not if you're attempting to espouse an agenda in the first place right? In terms of what actually happened with Papa Johns... They were five years into an eight-year contract with the NFL that contained an mutual out clause (meaning that both parties had to agree to exit to end the contract without legal action). There was bad blood between the two entities stemming from the founder and then CEO - "Papa John" - that sales were being hurt because of the NFL's decision to let players protest the anthem. Now that the season has passed and with Papa John's sales having to continued to slump through the rest of the season they were ready to be done with the deal just as the NFL was ready to move on - so it was completely mutual because it had to be. And here's the thing. John was right from a business perspective independent of social considerations. The NFL ratings suffered considerably last year and now 20% of all NFL viewers from two years ago no longer watch games. That's huge and it's bound to hurt a business relying on reaching those customers.
But hey, that's actually business information and we wouldn't want that to enter the mix in the business section now would we?
Hot Take: Just in case you're still wondering if the Cuban government is still evil...
Until Monday...